End Of The Affair

Once upon a time a young girl was so happy to have an Easy Bake Oven. One day she was preparing to make the most beautiful and delicate cake in her new oven. However, she forgot to remove the plastic tray used to slide the cake pan into the oven. The tray melted under the awesome strength of the cooking bulb within, thus making it impossible to use the oven. Several years later the young girl was given a Girl Gourmet Cupcake Maker! Wonder of wonders!

Okay, so the young girl is me. I was watching Barefoot Contessa (recorded on my DVR!) and she was making scones. Ina made it look so easy. I thought, I'll show her easy and I got out my Girl Gourmet Christmas gift. Here are the steps that followed.

This is the cupcake mix. You just add a little water, mix, and pour into provided cupcake paper cup and then into plastic cup.

Then you place the cupcake into the steamer, pop it in the microwave for 25 seconds, remove the lid and this is what you see. It smelled very pastry-esque so I continued.

Then you load the icing (mixed in the same manner as the cake mix) and load it into this icing gun thing. You place the pre-nuked cupcake under the icing gun and push down on the lever. The cupcake spins round and round and back and forth in the slot to create a professional icing swirl design.

This is what actually happened. It oozed all the way down to the bottom chamber holder thingy. No worries. I decided to proceed yet again.

Yes, they even give you decorative sprinkles! I liberally sprinkled them on my delicate and now odd smelling cupcake. I took my highly anticipated first bite. It tasted a bit like...cardboard.

I threw it in the trash with shimmers of disappointed tears in my eyes. It was so gross, if they were a Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean they would be called "bilecake" or "cardboard cup". It's such a shame because I used to love cupcakes; now I think I may be turned off of them forever, the affair is done. I think I'll leave the baking to my heroes on the Food Network. So, if you know anyone without taste buds that would be interested in receiving (no purchase necessary!) my Girl Gourmet Cupcake Maker with three remaining cupcake mixes and frosting mixes be sure to send them my way. Well, better go, my stomach is starting to cramp.

New Dwelling

I've taken a few photos of my new place. I only have about 2 rooms in order but they are still not decorated.

This is my kitchen. You'll notice my cuisinart griddler on the counter top. It has quickly become one of my prize possessions. I also have a dishwasher now, hooray!!

This is yet another view of my kitchen (it's just so large).


This is my living room. I'll definitely have some art work in this room. I should be able to start planning picture placement (alliteration rules!) next week with the help of an organization book by the domestic goddess Martha Stewart. I've got a class to teach this weekend but other than that my plans are to relax and enjoy the time off. Next week will be busy so I'll store up my free time while I can.

Technology

We have a scanner at work, of which no one has received training. Usually I just tell the students, who are pretty tech-savvy these days, to have a crack at it. I decided to do the same myself today. It was fairly easy and I was even able to edit my scanned item using Adobe Photoshop on the desktop. However, when I inserted my flash drive into my desk computer it shut down. Huh. So, I rebooted and tried to open the file again. It said "no file selected" and the disk was empty. I wanted to post this cute little comic (seen below) from the newspaper. Being the information savvy librarian that I am I just went to the newspapers web edition and did a screen shot. So, technology both failed me and made a quick recovery.

I thought this was really cute and it shows the general perception of librarians: elderly, glasses, bun, "forceful" about library property. Anyhoo, work has been pretty busy. Students have been asking reference questions and I've taught a few classes this week. I'll be traveling to our Augusta campus next week so that will be another nice change.

I saw Bride Wars which I had high hopes for but fell flat in the humor department. I also saw Hellboy II and Notes on a Scandal. Both were pretty entertaining but I wouldn't really recommend either. I watched The Thief Lord last night which is based on a young adult book I read a couple years ago for my international literature for young adults. It was lame but I remember that I had a really hard time getting interested in the book. I finished the 5th book in The Last Apprentice and there will definitely be another book. Hooray! I think I'll try some non-fiction next. Unpacking is nearly complete but I'm very unmotivated at this point. The 5 boxes that needed to be unpacked last week still need to be unpacked this week. Organizing and hanging of artwork will be the last thing to happen.

New Books

As some of you might know I now work at an academic library. I used to work at a public library and we received crates of new books each week. I loved looking at all the new books, especially the young adult books, and deciding which ones I wanted to read. When I started at my current job I kind of forgot about new books. Several boxes of books have arrived, stuffed with young adult literature and I'm like a kid in a candy store! Once I finish the last book in The Last Apprentice series I'll dive in to the new arrivals.

The Bad Room

Happy New Year everyone!!! I hope joyous celebrations were had and snacks and beverages were consumed by all. Christmas was lovely, I ate too much, just as I planned. New Year's was fun, I ate too much, just as planned.

I am now living in my new place. Everything is a mess and I'm as happy as can be. I'm so glad to be out of the Palace. The move was on Saturday but I began transporting boxes on the first of the year. There were a few injuries on move-in day but nothing requiring serious medical attention. I went back to the Palace on Sunday to vacuum and do some minor tidying up. I opened the door to the bad room took some pictures and exited as quickly as possible. I did not want to contaminate my new vacuum by cleaning up that horrid room.

The arrows indicate the location of a bug--mostly roaches and spiders. I have labeled the scorpion at the bottom of the picture. The orange circle at the top right of the picture indicates where the window did not close. My dad "sealed" the opening with newspaper when I moved to the house in July. The bug man then doused the paper with bug spray and drenched the room from top to bottom. You can see the good it did. This was going to be my office but I high-tailed it outta there after a week.

These are the remains of the scorpion in that room. It got separated during the move a little. I think my help stepped on him a couple times.

This is where my computer desk was. You'll notice the cluster of bugs in this particular area. Oh, and the spiders came in from the opening in the ceiling from the ceiling fan as well. Gross.

I also decided to take a picture of part of the master bathroom. This is the bidet. Above the bidet is a large nut. I was informed this was called a butt nut and was only found in a very small part of India. I want to check the validity of this statement but I'm worried about what may pop up during a Google search. An image search is out of the question.

I will post more about my unpacking progress. Cable and Internet were set up today so things just keep getting better. Now, I have not had any bills yet, obviously, so I may be singing a different tune in a few weeks.

I finished Northern Exposure. Like most shows, they did not seem to know how to end the series and I was hugely disappointed. However, I still want to see Alaska so no harm done.